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Olomouc, Czech Republic

Olomouc was perhaps my least favourite place on this trip. We stayed in a lovely hotel, and the beds were so comfortable. Maybe it was simply because it was the beginning of the trip, or maybe it was the 2hr wait for our dinner (though I have been assured that it was an anomaly & usually the service & food is great) and that made this my least favourite place. Olomouc is less famous than Cesky Krumlov, or Prague, but has the second most historically preserved city in Czech Republic.

Olomouc is a town with a history dating back as far as Roman times it is said that there was a Roman fort founded there during the Imperial Period. In 6th Century the Slavs settled there, and in 906 Jewish people also settled there though they were moved into the ghetto by 1060 and eventually expelled in the 1400's as a wave of anti-Semitism pushed through Europe. Olomouc had become one of the most important settlements in Moravia (Czech Republic is split into Bohemia and Moravia) for both trade and power. It competed with Brno for Capital of the Region but lost out when the Swedes invaded and ruled for 8 years.

As well as being briefly captured by the Prussian's. There was a conference held in town called the Punctuation of Olomutz where it was agreed to restore the German Confederation and Prussia accepted leadership of the Austrian Hasburgs. The town was later occupied by the German's, despite it being fortified eventually the ethnicity of most of the cities inhabitants was mostly German. After the revolution, though, the government rescinded its expulsion of Jews and they moved back into the city and built a new synagogue.

Tensions between the Germans and Czech people rose during the World Wars, though the town's main square was renamed Hitler Square after the German residents sided with the Nazi's. The Jew's new synagogue was destroyed in tensions between them and the German residents of the city. Fewer than 300 Jews from the town survived the Holocaust.

Olomouc took back the original name of the town square once the town was liberated. On leaving the city, the Germans shot at the town's astronomical clock and destroyed it. The only remaining pieces are in a museum. The Soviets rebuilt it in the 50's and it features a series of proletarians instead of saints. Ethnic German's were expelled from the city, in spite of many of the families having been there for a couple of century's, as part of the Potsdam Agreement, and the borders of Central Europe were redefined.

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